Coach Coughlin, with Eli Manning as quarterback, led the Giants to two Super Bowl wins, both over the Patriots, the first one ruining New England’s perfect season. You know, the one with the David Tyree helmet catch:

It would’ve been nice to see Tom go out on a higher note, but things don’t always work out that way. I think most Giants’ fans would agree that he had a good run. I know I do. I wish him well and hope he gets plenty of time to enjoy his grandchildren.

Tom Coughlin released a statement Monday, and will step down as head coach of the Giants

A debate on Twitter — maybe not a DEBATE exactly, more of a series of tweets, some of which are amusing — regarding the raising of kids and whether or not it is a good idea to indoctrinate them into becoming fans of your favorite sports team, even if that team isn’t exactly known for winning it all. (Apologies if anyone is offended by the language of the Tweeter’s username. I’m not offended, but maybe someone else is. If so, sorry.)

My view? Don’t force the issue. If you’re a real fan of a team, your kid will probably pick up on that fandom as they grow up. Sometimes strange things happen; it’s easy to forget that our children are humans with minds of their own.

In my case it’s easy — I’m a Yankees fan and a Giants fan. Neither team breaks your heart the way the Mets and the Jets do. But if I lived somewhere other than New York, I would be more inclined to encourage my kids to consider our local franchises, even if I maintained my own life-long loyalties.

Here’s the tweet that spawned this post:

IF IT WERE ME THE KID WOULD SHARE IN MY RESENTMENT SUFFERING AND MISERY FOR ALL OF FUCKING TIME. DONT BE LIKE ME pic.twitter.com/X8STBMTp5h

Via the New York Times, a story (really a personal blog post) from Max Schireson, the current CEO of MongoDB, who decided to step down from the position in order to spend more time with his family. In other words, he opted out.

The blog post is fairly straightforward and worth reading, but this is the line I decided to share:

Friends and colleagues often ask my wife how she balances her job and motherhood. Somehow, the same people don’t ask me.

I’ll take it a step further. People don’t ask women who are married to successful men “what do you do?” Men, at least this man (I’m referring to me), are always asked what they do. “Father” isn’t enough. SAHD WAHD is the real answer, but it requires explaining. I usually answer “writer”, “primary caregiver”, or both, depending on the situation.

At the risk of tooting my own horn (note: I don’t even own a horn), this is a topic I’ve been talking about for years. I wrote about it on ForbesWoman, AOL ParentDish, and anyplace else I had the opportunity. It’s a very important thing to point out. Every parent makes choices. The expectations, however, are drastically different for men and women. I’ll quote myself again: there is a magazine called ‘Working Mother’, but there will never be a magazine called ‘Working Father.’

In an ideal world, Schireson’s tale wouldn’t be a major story. He’s making a choice that working women (a really annoying term that we really should be past but we’re not) are expected to make every single day. Women are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Men, on the other hand, tend to receive praise for opting out.

Obviously not everyone feels the same way. There were some seriously negative comments posted on the AOL article I wrote in 2009. A lot of people believe that men should go to work and women should stay home and focus on raising the kids. That is still the way things work in the majority of households in the United States, at least as far as I know.

To clarify, my points on this matter are the following:

– Men do not have to be the primary bread-winner. They can be primary caregivers. I don’t know if that’s what Max Schireson’s role will be in his family; his children aren’t babies. Still, he made a choice, and it’s a valid one.

– This should not be such a big deal. Think about the story for a moment. As you can see below, every media outlet from The Today Show on down covered what is essentially a personal decision made by a parent who happens to have a job. Why does this matter? Why, in the 21st century, are we still so stuck on traditional gender roles?

– None of what I say here should be construed as being disparaging to Mr. Schireson in any way. This should go without saying, but since the Interwebs is where nuance goes to die, I want to make it clear that I respect what this particular parent decided to do. I would also respect him if he stayed on as CEO because he saw it as a way to make a lot of money and secure his family’s future. In fact, I would feel the same way if a woman were to make either decision. These are personal matters. Not everything works for everybody else.

– Not everyone has the luxury of being able to make this choice. This is important. Single parents generally need to work full-time (unless they have a lot of money socked away; if so, good for them). Again — nuance. Not all situations are the same.

Personally, I think it’s great that Mr. Schireson decided to pull back from what sounds like a hectic work schedule in order to be around for his kids. I think it’s great that he is in a financial position to do so. I wish him and his family nothing but the best.

And I really, truly wish that we didn’t have to talk about this topic any more. Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in.

Eventually I’ll run out of semi-clever titles for collections of tweets that I’ve recently found interesting. For now you’ll have to bear with me as I use stuff like The Tweets That Ate The Bronx. Which would be scary if it actually happened.

Emergency “Twitter was down so I wrote my tweet on paper and photographed it and posted on flickr” : Satire on internet culture (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anyway…

Here’s some stuff found on Twitter that we deemed worthy of being included in a DaddyTips Tweet Roundup. Yee-ha! (Get it? Round-up? Like rodeo? Yee-ha? Oh forget it.)

I have a lot more to say about this than I have time to right now, but here’s the simple version. There is nothing wrong with little kids using iPads or other technology. They also need to develop fine motor skills. So for someone to say “hey, they don’t need to know how to tie their shoes as long as they can play Flappy Bird” is pretty stupid. (Note: that is not a direct quote, I’m making a point.)

Orange is the New Black is back soon. Here’s the new trailer. I haven’t quite finished Season 1, but so far it’s one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen. Not remotely kid-friendly, in case you were wondering. But very very good. Here’s the trailer for Season 2.

The good folks at Babble.com ask, “Could this text message program really prevent teen pregnancy?” Um… maybe? I think the best way to prevent teen pregnancy is sexual education programs. But maybe this way helps too.

Related articles (Note: These are offsite links; DaddyTips takes no responsibility for outside content. None of these links is related to the content above, but we liked all of the suggestions, most of which contain the word “Bronx”. One even involves Tim Tebow. Because when you think about it, everything is about Tim Tebow. Tebow seems to have changed his dog’s name from Bronco to Bronx at some point. OK.)